Festival Biographies

Yuval Sharon

Named a “Face to Watch” in 2012 by the Los Angeles Times, Yuval Sharon has been creating an unconventional body of work exploring the interdisciplinary potential of opera. His productions have been described as “dizzyingly spectacular” (New York Magazine), “magical” (The Village Voice) and “ingenious” (San Francisco Chronicle). His most recent project, David T. Little’s Soldier Songs at the new Prototype Festival in New York, was called “vivid and harrowing” (The New York Times) and “a high-potency staging that can give many established companies an adrenaline jolt” (New York Magazine).

Mr. Sharon founded and serves as Artistic Director of The Industry, an experimental opera company in Los Angeles, where his inaugural production of Anne LeBaron’s hyperopera Crescent City was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “groundbreaking” and “reshaping LA opera.” He was Project Director for four years of New York City Opera’s VOX, an annual workshop of new American opera, which under his direction became the most important crucible for new opera in the country. He has also worked with international houses such as the San Francisco Opera, the Mariinsky Theater, the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria and the Komische Oper Berlin, as well as experimental venues such as Le Poisson Rouge, Berkeley Opera and the Deitch Projects. Mr. Sharon was assistant director to Achim Freyer on the Los Angeles Ring Cycle and Associate Director of the world premiere of Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht with Graham Vick for the London 2012 Cultural Olympics. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Christopher Cerrone’s Invisible Cities at Los Angeles’ Union Station and a new production of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe.